


Ghost Town

by mister_otter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Magic, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:32:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mister_otter/pseuds/mister_otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love, death, meltdown, and a dark curse. Draco Malfoy desperately needs Hermione Granger’s help. Does he dare step out of the shadows and attempt to resurrect what they once shared, in order to save someone else?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally appeared as part of the dramione_remix 2013; remixed couple = Toby/Spencer of Pretty Little Liars.  
> As always, I am honored and delighted to have eilonwy as my beta, and to give credit to her here. Thanks for a very magical friendship and collaboration!

Ghost Town

 

Budapest. Blue midnight and high summer. In a ‘ruin’ pub at the heart of the old city Draco Malfoy sat in the darkest corner, nursing a tall Sárkány Sör, his grey eyes steadily tracking the movements of the bar keep as she walked back and forth, pulling pints, stirring martinis, and mixing the occasional summer concoction, so neon green that it glowed.

He’d been watching her for three-quarters of an hour and in that time, she’d never once glanced his way, never gave any sign that she sensed his presence. Good. He knew he was a fool for coming here, but when he’d learned where she was at last, the longing for a glimpse of her, the need to just look at her, had been too overwhelming to resist. 

And so he sat in the darkness, the hood of his summer-weight sweatshirt pulled up to shadow his face and cover his hair. He could have cast a glamour, but then she might have sensed the magic. He wanted to remain undetected, to savor the sight of her and then vanish into the night like the shadowy thing that he’d become. He needed her help, needed it desperately, but how could he ask for it, when she thought him dead? For now, the best he could do was hover near her, like a ghost haunting the one thing that had made him feel most alive.

Signaling to the waitress, he ordered another beer and then settled further into the shadows, eyes on the bar mistress as she worked.

She wore an edgy version of the little black dress—short and tight, the bodice made of wide swaths of fabric that criss-crossed her chest like bandoliers minus the bullets. All four fingers of her right hand were wrapped by an enormous ring that spelled out the word nen in capital letters—Hungarian for ‘no.’ The ring seemed timed to periodically flash its message to the group of young men who lined the bar, watching her shapely bum move beneath the black fabric of her dress as she worked. 

While Draco stared, one of the drunks who’d been occupying the bar for the last half hour made a you-and-me gesture at Hermione and then pointed to the ring as it flashed.

“I don’t speak Polish, baby!” His voice was brash, his accent American.

With a slow smile, Hermione extended her middle finger upward. “But surely, you must understand the universal language for ‘go fuck yourself?’” she asked in her cultured, British voice as the American’s friends fell about, roaring with approving laughter.

Draco smiled into his beer. This was a very changed Hermione—one who hadn’t felt the need to educate the drunk by explaining that most of the people of Budapest did not speak Polish, either.

The smile quickly faded as Draco considered the other ways in which Hermione would have changed in the eighteen months they’d been apart. She’d gone from being with him to being with no one. From being a war heroine with a brilliant future to tending bar in Ghost Town, a pub set up in an abandoned ware house in an alley off Kazinczy Street, Budapest. From being at the center of the British wizarding world, surrounded by friends and comrades, to shunning everyone and running off where no one could find her. 

The fact that he’d been the cause of these changes was hard to take. Perhaps harder than anything he’d ever had to accept, save one—the thing that had happened to his mother. And it was for this reason that he needed Hermione desperately. Needed her now. He was fooling himself, of course, that it was the only reason. But it was the one strong enough to make him come out of the shadows to which he’d consigned himself, the one strong enough to make him break his cover, ignore the promises he’d made, and plead with Snape to help him find her.

And the only reason powerful enough to convince Snape to listen to his pleas. 

Snape, who’d faked his own death in order to remain undercover, sniffing out the followers of Voldemort gone into hiding after their leader’s defeat. Snape, who had a penchant for falling in love with the wrong women, shifting his affections during the war from dead Lily Potter to the beautiful, tragic, and now cursed Narcissa Malfoy.

It had been a late spring evening of heavy rain and unseasonable cold when Draco had come to Snape, in the tall, narrow London townhouse that was now the potion master’s secret lair. A fire blazed in the hearth and Snape had looked up from the book he was studying, the lines around his mouth scored even more deeply by the passage of time and the burdens of the war. 

“I’ve committed my mother to St. Mungo’s for her own safety,” Draco had told him without preamble. “There’s nothing more that can be done. They’ve consulted the best curse breakers our world has to offer. It seems the curse that fell on her is set in stone.”

With a cry of “Dammit,” Snape had slammed shut the book he’d been reading and hurled it into the fire. As the flames curled about the leather binding, Draco had seen the word “Curses” in the title and knew his mentor had been trying, as hard as he himself was, to find a solution. 

“Is it… as we thought?” Snape had asked, his back to Draco, his face in shadow as he watched the book burn.

“Yes. Aunt Bellatrix was the curse caster. And because it was a powerful blood curse, a family curse—and the one who cast it is now dead—the spell is unbreakable.”

As Snape stood silently, his black hair now touched with silver, hanging lank around his face, Draco had seen his chance. Gathering courage and taking a deep breath, he spoke. “There is one thing we might consider. Be warned—you aren’t going to like it. I… I would like to consult with Hermione.”

Snape had turned toward him then, black eyes glittering like a deep draught of poison. “Hermione Granger thinks you are dead. You cannot break your cover, Draco. There are Death Eaters still to be ferreted out and captured—young guns who will stop at nothing to regain the promise of power that was lost at Voldemort’s defeat. You know this,” Snape had hissed. “The agreement you made is as binding as any curse. Lucius was spared the penalty of death by Avada for crimes of treason against the wizarding world, in exchange for your services as an undercover agent. Miss Granger cannot know that you are still alive.”

“You know as well as I do that if I approached her, she would not say a word to anyone.”

“If you were seen speaking with her, it would put her in gravest danger.”

“How? The entire world, except my mother, thinks I was killed.” There was no fear that Narcissa could ever betray Draco, for who would believe the ravings of a mad woman confined to St. Mungo’s psychiatric ward?

“What makes you think Miss Granger could help us?”

“She… she and I were together when we were working on our research theses for NEWTs. By coincidence, her topic was family and blood curses. Hermione had uncovered something odd, something that intrigued her. I don’t know details, but I do remember she chose not to include it in her paper. Said it would require more study than she had time for, with the deadline looming.”

“And what if her discovery has no bearing on your mother’s case?”

“The doctors and curse breakers have admitted they can do nothing for Mother. So I’d say we have nothing to lose.”

“Except your continued anonymity as an agent for the Ministry.”

“No one watches for a dead man.” Draco’s voice was grim. “Please, Severus.”

Snape had raised his head, a smile that was both bitter and poignant touching his mouth. “I could make some rather interesting observations about love, death, hope, and irony. Instead, I shall simply comment that we are quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“Then you’ll help me?”

The smile had vanished from Snape’s face. “As you are aware, Miss Granger broke the night she saw you fall dead in Greyfriar’s cemetery. It was then that she abandoned the wizarding world and disappeared. I’ll make some inquiries. I’m in touch with both Kingsley and Harry. If anyone knows where Hermione is hiding, it will be one of them…”

Now, two months later, Draco found himself staring at Hermione across a crowded pub in a faraway city. He lifted a shaking hand and drained his second beer, Snape’s remembered words reverberating in his head—Miss Granger broke when she saw you fall dead…she broke… she broke… she broke…

He glanced toward the bar. Hermione looked utterly beautiful, competent, and poised—not broken. But as the trite old saying went, and as Draco knew only too well, looks could be deceiving. How would she react to learn he wasn’t dead? Had she found acceptance, putting her grief behind her? What would it do to Hermione’s peace of mind, to her life, for him to blunder back into it? Even if it was for the very best of reasons.

Rising from the table, Draco dropped some money onto its scarred surface, pulled the hood of his sweatshirt even lower over his face, and stumbled out into the night, the light from the streetlamps slivering into spikey shards at the sudden sting of tears. Ignoring the wetness at his eyes, Draco set his face hard. If he was going to help his mother, Hermione’s feelings couldn’t be spared. Nor could his. The sooner he made a plan to contact her, the better. 

*

 

Hermione glanced across the pub as the door opened and the night swallowed the stranger who’d been sitting at the table in the far back corner. 

He’d watched her for the better part of an hour, a lone figure in a pale grey sweatshirt, his face invisible beneath the raised hood. Something about him had set her magical senses tingling. Possibly a creeper. Or maybe just another ghost, in this part of the city where people built new lives atop the dead dreams of others. 

Kazincsy Street was known for its ruin pubs—drinking establishments created out of empty and abandoned buildings. A whole culture had grown up around them and now it was fashionable among both locals and tourists alike to frequent such venues. Here the drinking and revelry lasted far into the night; people could lose themselves and just… forget. It was one of the reasons she’d come here and taken a job. 

Another was the area’s proximity to the magical arm of the University of Budapest, where Hermione was enrolled in two courses—university-level History of Magic and Studies in the Magical Mysteries. Taking a mindless job had allowed her to focus on her education, just as leaving all that was familiar had enabled her to free herself from some ghosts of her own. Or at least, to imagine that she was working to free herself. She was honest enough most days to recognize it was all pretense. The ghosts of her past were anything but laid to rest.

Realizing she was staring at the empty table where the stranger had sat, Hermione turned to a harried waitress heading out from behind the bar with a loaded tray. “Katya?” she asked. “The man in the far left corner—what was he drinking?”

“Sárkány Sör. Dragon’s brew,” Katya replied, looking at Hermione oddly. “Why?”

“Just curious.” Hermione smiled and then shivered as an odd little frisson ran up her spine. There was no doubt about it; she’d picked up magical vibes from the man. She hadn’t spent a year in this city where magic ran so deep, honing her skills for nothing. The man was a wizard. He was hiding it for some reason. On top of that, the hoodie he’d worn reminded her of a night she’d rather not recall.

Still, Hermione was more curious than concerned. At the moment, she kept her wand in a holster strapped to her thigh and mostly visible in the short dress she had on tonight. The locals had seen it before. They all thought it was some type of stiletto-and-garter contraption—chic, and deadly as hell. She smiled to herself. If they only knew the half of it…

Struggling to shake off the unease that had gripped her, Hermione hauled down a fresh bottle of vodka from the glittering rack above the bar and went back to work. She’d deal with the feelings generated by the hooded stranger later. Right now, she had patrons to inebriate.

*

 

Quarter past four in the morning. Draco stood hidden in the shadows beneath a lighted window one flight of stairs above him. He knew the window belonged to Hermione’s flat; he’d followed her home from work, lurking in a darkened doorway near the pub until she’d come out, then slipping along behind her at a stealthy distance all the way to their destination.

At this moment, he wished he really were a shade, a wraith, a phantom. He’d glide through her window with boneless ease and spend the rest of his life just watching over her, protecting her. That scenario was, in all reality, the closest he’d likely ever get to being a part of Hermione’s life again. 

Draco shook off his melancholy mood as a wee-hours mist began to fall. Thoughts like those were a fucking waste of time. If he was ever going to save his mother, he’d need to grow some gargantuan balls, face the girl he’d seemingly abandoned, and plead for her help. 

While Draco watched, the light above him winked out, the room failing not into total darkness but into the dim, soft flickering of candle glow. And then Hermione appeared at the window, pushing aside the curtains and raising the glass to the night outside. She’d traded her sexy bar mistress outfit for a grey T-shirt that stopped at the tops of her thighs, leaving her slender legs bare.

Immediately Draco was engulfed in a memory of her silken skin, the moist heat between her thighs. He felt himself grow hard and without thought, he raised one hand as though he could touch her across the space between them… Immediately a surge of anger struck him; his hand dropping to his side and curling into a fist. How had it come to this—that he was dead to the girl he loved, reduced to standing outside her window like a bloody stalker? It was much worse than creepy; it was a travesty, a mockery of all that had been between them. He’d lost her, through no fault of his own, through every fault of his own.

Draco struggled with the conflict of emotions swirling inside him. But if I don’t watch Hermione, don’t track the patterns of her everyday life, how can I determine the best opportunity for finally contacting her? he asked himself.

There is no best opportunity, you fool. You’re watching her because you have yet to grow the proper balls for doing what needs to be done. His inner voice was scathing and sounded exactly like Snape. It made Draco smile, in spite of his turmoil. 

Stepping back into the shadows, he leaned against the stone wall of the building across the street from Hermione’s. He’d sort it all out, tomorrow. For tonight, he’d keep true to his role of creepy stalker, with maybe, just maybe, a hint of guardian angel thrown in for good measure.

*

 

48 hours later…

 

Hermione walked along the broad swath of paving stones that bordered the Danube. The very air was blue with twilight, the lights of the old city beginning to do their evening dance across the river’s placid surface. The world of Budapest seemed at peace. Inside, Hermione was anything but. 

She’d been in turmoil for two days, ever since the hooded stranger in the back corner of Ghost Town had set her magical senses to vibrating. It didn’t help that at this moment, she knew she was being followed. The someone quietly dogging her steps was skilled at stealth and subterfuge but nevertheless, Hermione knew he was there. And she, the girl who had helped battle a mad man and flown on the back of a dragon, was very, very afraid. 

A scattering of tourists and lovers strolled here and there, enjoying the pleasant evening. Hermione’s wand was in her hand, its length carefully concealed within the sleeve of her short, summer jacket. Neither fact quieted her fears in the least. 

She hadn’t felt this afraid since… that night. Her racing thoughts flicked and skittered, bouncing from this present moment beside the Danube to the way she and Draco had come together. And the way he had died.

Perhaps for them it had been love at two-thousand-one-hundred-and-seventeenth sight. Or merely love at first sight, with delayed gratification—like thunderstorms following drought, fierce relief with rainbows after. Only, they never got to the rainbows…

Harry and Ron hadn’t liked it, hadn’t trusted Draco. But the fight had gone out of those two after the war; for the most part, they let Hermione be.

Late December, a breath of snow in the air. Cram course completed and NEWTs successfully passed, she and Draco had been part of a group headed to celebrate at Spectral, a wizarding club hidden deep in Greyfriar’s Cemetery. 

They’d been attacked by a band of Neo Death Eaters—Voldemort’s youngest followers—angry about their lost chances and still hungry for power. The Neos had burst out from among the tombs, dressed not in Death Eater masks but hooded sweatshirts that kept their faces in shadow, their wands lighting up the night with spells and curses. To Hermione’s horror Draco had shoved her roughly aside, run straight toward their attackers and then turned to fight with them, against Harry and the others.

As the snow fell harder, Draco had fallen, too. Hermione had scrambled to his side, dragging him against a tomb away from the action. He’d lay so still, the white flakes drifting onto his closed eyelids and melting against his lashes like tears. Blood was everywhere, and she couldn’t find a pulse.

“Please, Draco, please!” she’d screamed, alternately pounding his chest and casting whatever spells she could think of that brought healing, brought life. Then Harry and Ron were carrying her away while she kicked and shrieked, wailing like a banshee and biting Ron hard enough to leave a scar.

Later, there had been no recriminations, no “I told you so’s” from her friends. Repeated attempts to contact Narcissa had gone unanswered; the only information she’d received had come from Kingsley, who’d told her that Draco was gone, that Narcissa had held a private service to lay him to rest. She’d listened, in that icy, calm, and bloodless way that had gripped her since she’d been dragged screaming from the cemetery. 

“I’m sorry, Hermione. I truly am.” Harry had folded her in his arms, holding her close for comfort. Quietly, with great dignity, she’d extricated herself from his embrace, shaking her head from side to side ‘no,’ over and over while the tears streamed.

And then, brave Hermione—just like brave Sir Robin of the Holy Grail tale—ran away. Bravely ran away, away… the minstrel’s tune had echoed in her mind so many times it had become a mantra, but one she didn’t mind. Because sometimes the bravest thing to do was to run away, to break ties with all that was familiar, Apparate into the night, and carve out one’s own path…

Running away was not an option this time. Not here in the blue Budapest twilight with something dogging her steps. This time, the bravest thing to do was to stand and face it down.

The hand that held her wand was shaking, as was her other hand. Her legs had begun to tremble so that she had to slow her steps to a totter. At the core of her being, where all that was magical resided, she was quaking so hard it felt as though she might tear into pieces, like bits of shredded paper flying on the wind and all of them screaming like Howlers.

Hermione knew what dogged her steps, knew that if she turned she would see not an attacker, not a Neo Death Eater—but a ghost.

*

 

Just when she thought she could stand the suspense no longer, there was a rush of footsteps behind her and the hoarse, urgent whisper of her name. “Hermione.”

She couldn’t know—but should have guessed—that it took all the courage Draco possessed to approach her after all this time, that the only way he could make himself carry through was to run up to her and just do it. He’d chosen his moment well, waiting until they’d entered a deserted section of the river path before speaking.

At the sound of his voice, Hermione whirled. She registered no shock, yet her face blanched paper white, her eyes blazing like the proverbial six-shooters found in old, American westerns “You!” she hissed, her wand aimed straight at Draco’s crotch.

“Yes. Me.” Draco kept his own wand lowered, a look of helplessness on his face. Of all the ways he had imagined meeting his love again, being held at bay with her wand pointed at his genitals was not one of them. And she seemed not surprised to see him at all, but infuriated almost beyond bearing.

“I knew it! I knew you weren’t dead. Everyone tried to tell me to leave off, Hermione, he’s gone, really gone. But I knew better.” Her voice was hard and brittle, grinding against Draco’s frayed nerves like a cheese grater on tender skin. “If you’d been dead, I would have felt it.” She had begun to circle around Draco as if he were a mortal enemy, one with whom she couldn’t let her guard down for a single instant, instead of the man she loved to distraction. “What I can’t fathom, what I will never be able to fathom, is why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you were doing.”

“Hermione, please listen. For just one minute. I can explain…”

“No, I don’t think you can. Not in a way that would ever make me forgive you for your lack of trust.” In spite of Hermione’s fierce determination to keep her feelings in check, tears had begun to leak from the corners of her eyes and track down her cheeks. Furious with herself as well as with Draco, she swiped her eyes with one hand and then sniffed vigorously, lifting her chin. “What we had… what we shared… was real. Did you not realize you could trust me with your secrets, your lies, your life?”

“Hermione.” Draco’s voice was low and immeasurably sad. “There was not a single hour of a single day of the past eighteen months when I haven’t pictured your face and…”

Hermione cut him off with a sharp, slashing motion of one hand “Surely, you must have known how very much I was hurting, Draco. Through all that time when you pictured me, did you picture that?” She broke off with a bitter laugh. “Were you at all aware of the hours, the days, I spent searching for some relief? For some proof that I was either right, and you were alive, or wrong, and you were dead. Through Divination and Occlumency, séances and necromancy—I tried everything to find out which side of the veil you were on.”

Draco gave a harsh bark of laughter of his own. “Occlumency was never going to work. Did you forget it was Snape who trained me?”

Hermione made no reply, wiping her tear-stained cheeks, and wringing Draco’s heart like a wet mop in the process. He took a sudden step forward, his hand out, his eyes pleading.

“I would never have hurt you without good reason. I did what I did to protect you, to protect my family. And I was never one of them—never a Neo Death Eater.”

“I know that. I knew it then. That night in Greyfriar’s, you fought against Harry, Ron and the rest of us—yet you hit no one.” She smiled, a tiny uptick at the corners of her lips and Draco felt a first, tentative ray of hope. “You’re a better wizard than that, Draco Malfoy. If your heart had truly been in it, you’d have done some real damage.”

“Hermione.” Draco took another step closer and breathed her name, the longing to touch her, to regain those lost months, almost more than he could bear. “Is there anything I can do to show you…”

But Hermione took a step backward, shaking her head as a cold mask slid over her features. She was fighting hard not to fly into his arms, but Draco didn’t need to know that. “Right now, there is only one thing I want from you— I want to know the reasons why. Why you “died.” Why you didn’t confide in me. And why, for the past two days, you’ve been dogging my steps like some sort of spectral hell hound.”

Draco sighed as Hermione stepped further away from him. He’d known it wouldn’t be easy, that the Gryffindor lioness would be hard to reclaim, playing hell cat to his hell hound for all she was worth. But she was here with him now, in the flesh, and for the moment there was relief and joy enough in just speaking to her face to face. Besides, there was his other reason for contacting her and it was of primary importance—to obtain the help he desperately needed for his mother.

“I will tell you everything,” he replied. “But it may take some time. Is there someplace we could go… maybe talk over coffee?”

“Coffee? This calls for whiskey, Malfoy, and lots of it. Ghost Town isn’t open yet, but there’s a small pub just up the street from mine that opens early. Does that suit?”

Draco nodded, walking toward her and tentatively holding out his hand for her to take. Ignoring it, Hermione turned on her heel and strode off into the dusk, leaving Draco no choice but to drop his outstretched hand and follow.

 

*

 

In the end, the whiskey turned out to be vodka, the night moonless and long. 

As Draco spoke Hermione listened intently, sipping her drink with her eyes fastened on his. In return, Draco’s eyes were locked on hers as he spun his tale of deceit, espionage, and family loyalty, pausing now and then for a swig of vodka to keep his focus on the story and not the look in her eyes.

It had started as a rather simple idea that quickly became complicated. Draco had agreed to infiltrate the Neo Death Eaters but Marcus Flint, their leader, eventually grew suspicious of him. And then Kingsley had come up with a fool-proof plan, one designed to circumvent those suspicions brilliantly. If Draco would agree to fake his own death, he could continue spying on the Neos without their knowledge, using what he already knew of their activities to monitor their whereabouts and uncover other cells. In exchange for Draco’s services, Lucius would not be charged with high treason. After a suitable amount of time had passed, his father would receive a full pardon. 

“Hermione, Flint didn’t trust me because he’d got word that I was seeing you. I assured him that it was all part of the plan.” Draco winced, remembering the lascivious, knowing look on Flint’s ugly face as Draco had bragged about using the Mudblood for a fuck toy to be tossed aside later. “But you were right.” His face softened, his grey eyes deep pools in the dim light of the pub. “What you and I had was real. For all my skill, I couldn’t hide it. Flint must have seen something in my eyes, or heard something in my voice, that gave us away. And I knew I had put you in real danger. ‘Dying’ was the best way to for me protect you.”

“No, Draco. Telling me would have been the best way.” Hermione’s voice was steely. “What if Flint had decided to come after me anyway, once he thought you were dead? Wouldn’t I have been better off knowing that I might become a target?” Hermione’s eyes glittered with vodka and anger. Draco stared as her words sank in. Bloody fucking hell, she was right. He’d thought to take the whole, heavy load on his own shoulders, when in reality he’d left her not only heart-broken but potentially in danger.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t think…”

Hermione sighed. “No, you didn’t. But no matter.” She took another large swallow from her tumbler and then set it down, hard. “The fact remains that when you chose not to confide in me you negated something precious—the trust we had built.” Suddenly Hermione leaned forward. Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Do you not remember the years of hatred between us and how it was all the more intense because we both secretly wished it wasn’t so? And the way that made us more frustrated and angry still?”

They stared at each other, lost in the fierceness of their past, the memory of walls falling at last, barriers finally breaking, and the immense trust it had taken to step through that rubble into each other’s arms. Draco’s hand shook with the memory of it as he poured more vodka into his glass; Hermione’s eyes were wet once again as she asked softly, “How can we ever get that back?”

Draco held her gaze. “For me, it never left,” he replied simply. “And it didn’t for you, either. Think about it. After the first shock of my supposed death, you spent hours trying to find my living presence or contact my departed spirit. All that we had—it never stopped existing, not for one single minute.” Draco reached across the table and carefully, gently linked his smallest finger through hers. “The link might have been tenuous but you knew it was still there. Otherwise, you would have simply let me go.”

Hermione’s eyes were huge and she gave a soft, hiccoughing sob, quickly drowned by another swig of vodka. “Yes,” she whispered sadly. “It was there. That tiny spark. The ghost of what I felt for you, searching all frantic through the dark for the ghost of what you felt for me.”

“I did what I thought was best,” Draco told her. “You do realize that for all our lives, that is the best any of us can do? Make the decisions we must, with the knowledge we have. And sometimes there’s damage that can’t be avoided.”

Hermione suddenly smiled through tears. “Since when did you become Dumbledore?” she asked. And then her fingers were twining through Draco’s until they were holding hands tightly, her eyes roaming over his face. He was as beautiful as ever, but Malfoy’s had never been an easy beauty. His face was too arresting, all angles and planes and sharp, interesting edges. Hermione had never wanted him more than she wanted him right this minute, at the end of eighteen months apart and one bottle of vodka.

“Spend the night with me,” she said suddenly.

Draco looked startled, then a wicked grin lit his features. “Gladly. But you do know I’m drunk as all hell?”

“We both are. What else would we be after that much Nemiroff?” She rose unsteadily from the table. “Quick. Let’s get out of here before it wears off. Or I might remember how angry I still am with you and decide that after all, I will hex your balls into oblivion.”

Struggling to his feet, Draco tossed money onto the table top, grabbed Hermione’s hand, and strode toward the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love, death, meltdown, and a dark curse. Draco Malfoy needs Hermione Grangers help. Does he dare step out of the shadows and try to resurrect what they once had, in order to save someone else?

Ghost Town, Two

Draco woke with a throbbing head, the morning light hitting his eyes with the force of a thousand suns instead of just the one. Feebly, he brushed at something spider web-like that was tickling his forehead. Raising one eyelid, he saw that he was lying on a sofa, and the thing brushing his face was the hook end of a lacy bra, dangling from the sofa back.

And then he remembered. Hermione’s sofa. Hermione’s bra. Hermione’s naked body .. Slowly, his thoughts unwound like a film playing in reverse until he reached the beginning.

Last night, they’d burst through the door of her flat, ripping off clothes and falling immediately to the living room floor, shagging each other into brainless oblivion, followed by a brilliant round atop her bed. A third session had taken place here on the sofa, long, slow kisses and slowly building heat, after which she had apparently covered him with a blanket and left him to sleep off the remnants of the vodka. His back stung and he knew there were claw marks galore, as well as bite marks on his buttocks. Revenge is sweet, Hermione had murmured with a wicked smile. And it had been, for both of them. 

Draco tried to smile now, but it came off as a grimace from the force of the pain in his head. Hearing a rustle, he looked up to find Hermione gazing down at him. She was intriguingly dressed in a pale grey T-shirt that cupped her bum and outlined her breasts, her hair damp and curly from the shower.

“I have a hangover.” Draco felt too ill to do anything other than state the obvious.

“Of course you do. That’s why I made coffee. And this.” Hermione handed him a shot glass of something that looked like mud soup and smelled like… merde. He couldn’t drink it, he just couldn’t—but he did, in one quick, awful gulp. Almost immediately, the pain in his head and eyes ceased.

“The Eastern Europeans do many things well,” Hermione told him. “Morning-after potions are just one of them.” 

“Is Eastern Europe where you learned that trick of almost killing a man with sex?” he asked wryly.

“Oh, no. That one I figured out all on my own.” Hermione leaned over to touch him on the nose and then placed a mug of strong coffee in his hands. 

Two sips later, Draco felt almost fully restored to his usual self. And quite suddenly, the sledge-hammer of guilt fell, replacing the hang-over hammer with a pain that was much, much worse.

His mother! In the drama of last night and the intensity of his and Hermione’s reunion, he hadn’t found time to address his most important concern. A groan of guilt escaped his lips and Hermione instantly sat down beside him, her features shadowed with concern. “Draco? Did the potion not work for you?”

“No, I’m fine. It’s not me. There’s something I need to talk to you about. Need your help with. It’s so damned important, why did I not mention it last night… I’m a bleeding idiot…”

Hermione laid a soothing hand on his leg. “Because last night you were drunk. And midnight is not exactly the ideal time for solving problems and sorting out one’s life. Things can look suspiciously skewed when there’s only starlight to see them by.”

What the hell did that last sentence mean? Was that her round-about way of telling him that last night didn’t negate the silent emptiness of eighteen long months? Draco gave Hermione a quizzical look but she ignored it and said, “Take a shower while I fix some breakfast. Whatever your problem is, I have all day to help you solve it.”

*

 

Half an hour later, over plates of toast, fruit, and scrambled eggs, Draco told the story of the curse that had struck Narcissa, turning her into a permanent resident of St. Mungo’s mental ward.

“From the beginning, Mother was in on the scheme of my supposed death,” he began. “She and I agreed that it was the only way to gain Father’s freedom. But I hated her being alone in the Manor with only house elves for company. From time to time I would secretly visit her for a few hours, in a guest wing that we seldom use. About six months ago, I noticed that she was… different. Quiet, subdued, sad. And she told me…”—Draco paused to take a sip of coffee—“ a strange story. One evening, just at dusk, a man had appeared at the front door. He was possibly the oddest fellow she’d ever seen, small and bent, with large, yellow eyes. His hair and beard were alternately black and white; his feet were so tiny and malformed they barely seemed able to support him. He gave Mother a package. There was no return address on it, only a name—Bellatrix Lestrange.”

Hermione made a sound of dismay. “Just so,” Draco replied, his eyes on his coffee mug as he turned it back and forth, fiddling with the handle.

“Mother kept the package for two days without opening it. She was waiting for me, for my advice. I was supposed to come for a visit, you see, but I was in Wales, tracking two of the Neos. I couldn’t let the trail go cold.” Draco looked up at Hermione then, his eyes wide as if pleading for understanding. Hermione nodded and he continued.

“When… when I didn’t come, she chose to open the package on her own. Inside was an old china doll, an antique from Great Grandmother Black that Mother and Bellatrix had fought over as children. Its face was smashed into pieces. Mother picked up one of the pieces and she told me… she knew immediately that it had been a mistake. The doll contained a curse that she’d activated by touching it.”

“If the doll hadn’t been broken, she might have chosen to leave it alone.” Hermione gasped, catching on immediately. “She might have been more suspicious and wary. But something about that ruined face would have drawn her to touch it.”

“Exactly. And what happened next…” Draco shook his head, struggling to continue. “Mother began to fall into depression, periods of despair so black that she felt compelled… to do away with herself.”

“Oh, Draco—no.” 

He sat silent, but for only a moment. “Since no one knew I was alive, Kingsley sent for the curse breakers. They discovered that Bellatrix had been the curse caster. And because the spell was done by a dead family member, it was likely impossible to remove. The spell set up an endless spiral. Mother experiences periods of lucidity, then falls into blackness and tries to kill herself. Her curse is that she can never be successful. She will make attempt after attempt, yet continue to live on.”

Hermione felt shiver upon shiver run up her spine as she stared at Draco in horror. “I think… that is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” she told him softly. “How many times has she…?”

“Four, now. Kingsley visited Father in Azkaban and got permission to commit her.”

Hermione rose from her place and walked the few steps to Draco’s chair, placing her arms around him. He stayed seated, holding her tightly and burying his face against her T-shirt.

“I remembered,” he murmured. “Remembered your NEWTs thesis on curse work, and how you found something odd, something that you said needed further research. I thought you might be able to help me.”

“And that is why you broke your cover,” Hermione said softly, touching his hair.

“That, and the fact that I don’t want to live without you anymore. I kept telling myself that I was only coming out into the open for Mother’s sake, but that’s a lie. I don’t want to be apart from you ever again.” Then, “What… what did you mean earlier, about things being skewed when we see them under starlight?”

In spite of her sadness at Draco’s tale of Narcissa’s woe, Hermione smiled. “That did sound like Luna, didn’t it? But what I meant is that I’ve changed. When I thought you had died, I was so desperate for answers. I decided to study in Budapest because of the things I could learn here, different from what we learned at Hogwarts. You’d be amazed at how brilliant I’ve become at divination.” 

“I suspect you’d be brilliant at anything you do.” Draco grinned, remembering how he’d watched her tending bar in that tight, black mini-dress and her skill at putting randy patrons firmly in their place.“I’ll see what I can do to help. I admit my research on curses hasn’t got very far. This last year has been all about calling up the dead and scrying for the living,” she told him wryly. ”But I’ve developed quite a collection of books since coming here. Just let me finish dressing and we’ll begin.” Hermione’s face lit up in anticipation of the joys of research and Draco almost laughed aloud at her eagerness.

Halfway to her bedroom, she turned back and gave him a long serious look. “I’m glad you came to me. Glad you asked for my help with this. You know I’ll do anything I can for Narcissa. And for you.”

Draco stared at her as if he’d never get enough of the sight. “We belong together,” he told her simply.

“You seemed to forget that, once. Don’t let it happen again. I promise there will be no saving your balls if you do.” With a toss of her curls, Hermione vanished into the bedroom. 

*

 

By late afternoon, Hermione’s small flat was littered with open books, closed books with paper slips marking important passages, and loose pages of notes scattered everywhere.

The joys of research had evaporated beneath the reality of what it might take to break a family curse perpetrated by a dead curse caster.

Draco and Hermione, seated at either end of the sofa with books open on their laps, looked up at the same time, their faces somber.

“I’m sorry.” Hermione spoke first. “There really doesn’t seem to be any other way, does there?”

Draco made no reply, not even a nod or shake of his head. He merely stared, stunned by the inequities of their life. From the improbable odds of their first coming together, to his choices that had torn them apart, to their finding each other again here in Budapest, it had all come down to one thing—a solution that was totally unacceptable yet seemed to be the only way to save Narcissa.

A string of profanity erupted from his lips.

Hermione merely nodded and replied, “I second that.”

Their day had started with high hopes that fast deteriorated into near lunacy as they followed the trail of information Hermione had uncovered while working on her thesis. British curse breakers had discounted it; it was a rare spell and almost mythical, said to be practiced only in Russia and certain isolated, superstitious sectors of Eastern Europe—The Spell of the Black Lamb. 

A curse cast by a family member who died before its removal was virtually impossible to break, especially if the caster had been both evil and powerful in life. As Bellatrix was. The slimmest ray of hope came from the Incantation of the Black Lamb, a spell in which a curse-free family member agreed to become a scapegoat, sacrificing him-or-herself that the other might go free. It was not a sacrifice of life, but for life, requiring the scapegoat to give up the one thing that to them was of primary importance. 

Draco and Hermione both knew what that would mean, what Draco would have to give up, if he were ever to free his mother. 

Hermione closed her book with a thud, rose from the couch and walked to the window. Outside, pink-red clouds flamed against the blue twilight sky. “Let’s go out,” she told Draco. “We’ll walk by the Danube, eat dinner, clear our heads. I’ve already cancelled my work for tonight.”

“Hermione…”

“No, Draco. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You and I both know what needs to be done.”

“I wasn’t going to. I wanted to tell you that we don’t have to do this alone, just the two of us. Like me, Professor Snape isn’t dead either.”

Hermione was silent for a moment. Then, “I suppose I should act surprised. But I saw that one coming from a long way off.” She turned back to Draco. “Our brilliant potions master would never let a mad man get the better of him.”

Draco gave a bitter chuckle. He realized he’d just betrayed his mentor, but there was no help for it. He and Hermione would need Snape’s expertise for what lay ahead.

“Did you know,” he asked. “That Severus began to train me in Occlumency and espionage when I turned seven? Mother had a premonition that things would not be good in our world and she wanted me protected. She felt subterfuge was the best way.”

“And was it?”

“With an aunt like Bellatrix and a father like Lucius? I’d say it was the only thing she could have done.”

Draco held out his arms and Hermione walked into them. 

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he told her, burying his face in her hair. “To lose you a second time…”

“There’s no help for it, Draco. You can’t condemn your mother to a lifetime of suffering when there is a chance the curse can be broken. Think of the agony she must feel, if she’s driven to such despair that she wants to die by her own hand, over and over. We can’t leave her that way, no matter what it costs us. We’d never be able to live with ourselves.” Gently wriggling out of his arms, Hermione said briskly, “You and I are going out to dinner now. We will discuss the future, what we might name the children we will never have and how they might look, where we’d like to live, all the places we’ll never see together…” Her voice caught on a sob as she headed for the door.

Draco stood rooted to the spot. “I couldn’t eat, much less discuss…”

Hermione whirled, a small bundle of fiercely focused agony. “Yes, you can. Because this night is all we will ever have, and the memories we make will have to last a lifetime! Years from now, when our third marriages end in divorce, we’ll know why. And it will make us smile. Please, Draco. Don’t deny us this last.”

Draco stared for a long moment. Then a cheeky grin lit his features. Hermione knew it was false, that his pain was as great as hers, but what else could they do but play the hand they’d been dealt to its inevitable conclusion? 

“What time does Ghost Town close tonight?” he suddenly asked.

“All pubs in Budapest close at one a.m. on Sundays. Why?”

“Perfect. And you have your own key to the place, right? Because later I intend for you to put on that tight little black dress you were wearing the night I first spied on you, and I am going to slowly peel it off and ravish you on top of the bar, just like I wanted to do then. If anyone catches us at it, so much the better. Does that sound like a proper night to remember?”

Ghost Town. Didn’t it just fit? However this played out, Draco Malfoy would haunt her for the rest of her days. Hermione’s heart was cracking into a million ruined pieces, but she smiled through her tears. “It sounds… like the most brilliant plan I’ve ever heard. Better than any I’ll ever hear again. Let’s make it happen.” 

She held out her hand. Draco crossed the room and took it. Together they descended the stairs into the falling dusk.

*

 

The next afternoon found the two of them seated in leather chairs in the study of Snape’s secret lair in London. Both were white faced and red eyed, and both winced as they shifted in their seats as if they had tender spots that needed coddling. 

Snape chose to ignore all of this, focusing instead on the stack of papers and books the couple had brought with them now littering the surface of his desk. 

After a very long while, he looked up, his face still and somber. “It is a heavy thing you are choosing to do,” he told them. “The curse, if Draco takes it on, will retain the same qualities it possesses while it is upon Narcissa. For her, there is the longing for death but the inability to make it happen. Her suicide attempts yield only broken knives, frayed ropes, poisons that simply prove ineffective.” A look of utter sadness crossed his face and he gave a shudder that seemed to come from deep within. Then, “For you, Draco, and you, Miss Granger…”

“Hermione.”

The potions master nodded and continued. “For you, Draco and Hermione, the desire to see each other—to be together—will still exist. You won’t suddenly become invisible to one another. But no matter what efforts you put forth, you will be thwarted from ever standing face to face. There will be doors that won’t open, streets you are unable to cross, rooms that suddenly become unnavigable as you try to reach each other.”

“In other words, hell on earth,” Draco mumbled with a sad, brittle smile. 

Snape inclined his head. “A difficult life choice, I concur—but in the end, the only one you can logically make.”

For several moments, there was no sound but the patter of summer rain outside the window. 

Then Draco shifted in his chair. “Severus,” he began. “We’d like… for you to accompany us to St. Mungo’s.”

Snape, who had once again been perusing the notes they’d taken with deep attentiveness, looked up, a spark of interest in his eyes. “Why?” he asked at last. “This thing… this spell you must do, seems highly personal.”

“We don’t want to have to face it alone,” Draco blurted. “Knowing what it will mean for the rest of our lives, I think we’re afraid we won’t have the courage to see it through! You’ve been my mentor since childhood… But also, you love my mother.”

It was then that Hermione saw something that she would never have expected had she walked the earth for a thousand years—Severus Snape blushed. 

“Who could not love Narcissa?” he mumbled sheepishly. Seconds later, the mask slid back into place and he rose from his desk to signal the conversation was at an end. “Yes, Draco, I will accompany you to St. Mungo’s. But it seems… while I was reading through Hermione’s copious notes…,”—here he raised one black eyebrow—“I was put in mind of a potion I might prepare that would ease the transition the two of you will be forced to make, in performing the Black Lamb incantation. The spell will cause much sorrow, much agony of soul, and the potion would make it a bit easier to bear. Not entirely, you understand, but it could help.”

“Thank you.” Hermione and Draco spoke at once.

“Give me until midnight and I will have it done. In the meantime, there is a task for you as well. Kingsley must be contacted. Inform him of your plan and ask him to arrange secret passage for us into St. Mungo’s. That way our covers need not be broken. Hermione, I trust you will guard your knowledge of Draco’s and my continued presence on this side of the veil with your life? It will only be necessary until the last of the Neo Death Eaters is captured.”

“Of course.” Hermione nodded as she and Draco turned to go.

“One other thing.” Snape came out from behind his desk. “The research you have done is admirable. But more admirable still is the sacrifice you are willing to make. I’ve no doubt you have more than sufficient bravery to carry this spell to its full conclusion.”

Praise from Snape—because in the end, Narcissa would be saved. Narcissa, whom Snape loved… Hermione gave Draco a quizzical glance.

He seemed to read her thoughts. “Unrequited,” he mouthed with a tiny shake of his head.

Raising his wand, Draco cast a glamour that would allow him to visit Kingsley undetected. In moments Hermione was walking away from Snape’s home on the arm of a portly, balding gentleman whose appearance did not deter her one bit from wanting to drag him into the nearest alley and have her way with him, one final time.

*

 

Midnight at St. Mungo’s. The words had all been spoken; the time for goodbyes had passed. 

Hermione stood beside Draco and Snape at Narcissa’s bedside, her heart broken all over again at the sight of Draco’s mother. Narcissa was pale, reed-thin, and haggard, her frail arms criss-crossed with scars from her attempts to pierce an artery with a too-dull knife, her mouth ringed with still-healing acid burns from the lye she had tried to consume. 

But her eyes were feverishly bright, and she had fought like a Chinese fireball to prevent her son from making the sacrifice he was prepared to make on her behalf. The battle had been long and heated, but Snape had stood with them. In the end, when Narcissa had seen that Draco and Hermione were immovable in their determination, she had agreed to accept their help.

Now strange, glowing symbols drifted in the air of Narcissa’s darkened room, interspersed with floating bowls of herbs, some bitter, some fragrant. The windows were open to the damp summer night, allowing the powers of air and earth to have free reign.

Both Draco and Hermione had downed a cup of the oddly sweet potion Snape had brewed to help them through the rigors of the Black Lamb Incantation. Standing on either side of Narcissa’s bed, eyes locked on each other’s faces, they extended their wands until the tips touched, preparing to invoke the spell.

Suddenly, with an unexpected shout of “Immobulus,” Snape swooped toward the bed. The couple before him stood frozen, their mouths open on the first syllable of the incantation, unable to utter a sound but fully aware of all that was happening.

And thoroughly confused by it.

Snape touched his wand to Narcissa’s forehead. “Isxeis elum,” he spoke, bringing the incantation to life. 

As the spell took hold the potions master fell into a trance, his eyes wide and staring, tears tracking down the deep grooves beside his mouth. His face twisted in agony as mist in the ugly hue of a bruise rose from the tip of his wand and seeped from between his lips.  
Draco and Hermione stood in agony also, unable to move so much as an eyelash to prevent what was happening, as on the bed Narcisssa twitched, writhed, and struggled, her back arching, her mouth stretched wide in a silent scream. 

From the four corners of the room black shadows came crawling, intangible as smoke, coiling and inching their slow way toward the bed. Spectral visions of Bellatrix flashed in and out of the shadows, sometimes here, sometimes there, her features contorted with rage as she fought from beyond the veil to keep her sister within the confines of the curse.

Then suddenly a great force hit Snape, sending him staggering backward into the far wall. He sagged forward as the tautness vanished from his face. Narcissa stilled at once, her chest rising on a gasp and then falling into the deep, even breathing of sleep. 

With a grunt, Snape slowly righted himself, pointing his wand at Draco and Hermione. “Finite Incantatum,” he muttered, freeing them from the power of the Immobulus. 

Draco shot across the room as if he were once again Slytherin Seeker and Snape his prized target. “Severus, what the hell?” he shouted. “What did you just do?”

“I took the liberty of tricking you,” the potions master replied, straightening his robes as though nothing odd had occurred. “And quite successfully, I might add. Instead of you and Miss Granger, it was I who performed the Black Lamb Incantation.”

“But how? You aren’t a family member! More importantly… did it work?” Draco asked. 

“For your mother, it most assuredly did.” Snape gazed across the room to where Narcissa lay quietly, his face impassive, his eyes shadowed with sadness.

“But how?” Hermione’s words echoed Draco’s. “And what was in that potion you made us drink?”

“It wasn’t a potion,” Snape told her. “I needed time to ready myself to take your place, so I lied about preparing one. What you drank was Yoo Hoo—an American beverage for which I have a curious predilection.” His lips quirked in the merest suggestion of a smile, quickly replaced by a look of utter seriousness. “As for how… a footnote in one of the papers you brought caught my attention. Rather than mention it and give you false hope, I chose to quietly act instead. It was an experiment whose outcome was never guaranteed.”

“But it worked,” Draco broke in. “How was that possible?”

Snape drew a deep breath, seeming to weigh his response for a long time. His eyes bore into Draco’s as if searching the depths of the younger man’s soul. At last he spoke, in a voice like weighted velvet. 

“A Muggle general once said, ‘War is hell.’ What he failed to add… is that war sometimes compels us to seek relief, where we know we should not.”

Walking past Draco, Snape touched his shoulder. “Try not to judge too harshly, my boy. As they say, the heart wants what it wants and some things are too real to be denied.” 

Suddenly he was on the window sill, his eyes glittering like onyx and diamond, bright and hard together.

“Keep my secrets.” 

The next second he was flying into the night, the only sign that he’d been there at all a single sheet of paper fluttering slowly toward the floor.

Draco grabbed for it, performing a quick Lumos so that he and Hermione might read it in the darkness of Narcissa’s room.

It was a page from one of the books they had brought from Hermione’s flat. A single passage stood out, heavily underscored in indigo ink.

"Note:" Draco read aloud. "There are instances in which a lover has successfully performed the Incantation of the Black Lamb on behalf of his or her beloved. While rare, the success rate seems dependent upon: a) prior acts of physical intimacy and b) strength of bond."

Hermione gripped Draco’s arm as he gazed from the empty window to the bed containing his mother’s sleeping form. A range of emotions flitted over his features—shock, anger, disbelief, all tempered by the realization that Narcissa was truly free. Forgiveness would have to come later.

“I never understood… I thought… he only cared for her from a distance,” Draco muttered.

Lacing his fingers with Hermione’s, he crossed the room to Narcissa’s side as her eyes fluttered open, her face lit in a wan smile. “Son,” she breathed. “I feel… lighter, somehow. The curse is gone, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Mother.” Draco touched her hair with his free hand and she raised her own to cradle his. 

“Severus—is he gone as well?”

“He’s gone,” Hermione told her, as Draco did not seem to have the words.

“He’s been a good friend,” Narcissa murmured. “Always off to the gods knew where, then appearing just when we needed him… shadow and light, here and then not—like a ghost.” Her eyes closed again as she drifted back into sleep.

Through the night, in twin chairs beside her bed, Draco and Hermione kept watch. Never once until morning was there a moment when they were not touching one another, even if it were nothing more than fingers linked across the space between their seats. The gift they’d been given was too priceless to be ignored for a single second.

*

 

One Year Later

 

Ghost Town, after midnight. Draco sipped a beer, lounging in his chair in a corner of the pub and watching Hermione at work.

In skin-tight jeans and a short, sparkly jacket, she was passing out drinks to a rowdy crowd of young British tourists seated at the bar. One of them had been making suggestive comments and hinting that she should meet him later. “Any alley out back will do, love!” he shouted.

As she had done on that night a year ago when Draco had first watched her, Hermione slowly raised one finger to her drunken customer. But this time it was her ring finger. 

Leaning down until she was only inches from the man’s face, she made a jabbing motion with her diamond and onyx ring, causing him to jump. “Sorry, but I’m engaged,” she said pleasantly. “And you might want to back off, now. You see, my fiancé is a powerful wizard from a very old wizarding family. For all you know, he could be aiming a hex at you right this minute. One that will entirely remove your balls from your body and leave you to carry on with your life as a eunuch.”

Draco grinned into his beer. His Hermione was very fond of the hexed balls cliché. He looked forward to hearing it for the rest of his life.

Holding the tourist’s eyes like a snake charming its victim, she raised the ring to her lips and kissed it before turning back to her work. The man shifted uneasily in his seat, making the universal hand motion for ‘crazy’ to his friends.

Moving toward the tap Hermione smiled across the bar at Draco. “Seven days,” she mouthed.

In one week, she would wrap up her time in Budapest, returning home to enter the hidden College of Magic at Cambridge and finish her studies. 

Draco, completely resurrected from the dead after the capture of the final Neo Death Eater, had been pleased to escape to Budapest and join her, avoiding the clamor surrounding his reappearance in the wizarding world. 

No doubt his and Hermione’s engagement would cause a fresh round of drama among those who knew them. As would the glittering, diamond and onyx ring she wore. An odd choice by most engagement standards. But for them, a symbol of the shadows and light through which they’d passed, the deaths in their lives as well as the life they were now allowed to have, and the one man who’d made it possible in the end.

Draco had accepted that he would always feel a bit… odd around Severus. How could he not, knowing that Snape and Narcissa had a past? Like so many of life’s ironies there was nothing to do but grin and bear it. And in this case, relish the happiness that had resulted.

Setting down his beer mug, Draco rose from the shadows and went to join his fiancée.

FIN

NOTE: In channeling Toby and Spencer of Pretty Little Liars, I chose to use some of their major themes: Smart, driven girl in love with an is-he-or-isn’t-he in league with the bad guys boy, a faked death, a serious meltdown, a suicidal mom in a psychiatric ward, and adults with secrets of their own. Hoodies play a significant role in PLL and there is much spying and attempts to unravel a curse, albeit not a magical one. I based my remix on the couple as they appear in the television series, not the book series. Title and musical inspiration from Cheap Trick’s ‘Ghost Town:’  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FiaGgPakrI


End file.
